Serving each other: positioning ourselves for crisis.

• Author: Freeman, Jean M.

There is no doubt: these are critical, changing times. You can hardly pick up any publication today without reading about a takeover attempt, merger or acquisition. Our stakeholders at all levels, from government officials to member advisory boards, are turning every stone, searching for methods to lower rates.

One thing is certain: this is a very complex issue, and successful companies will be those who seek solutions on every front. Regardless of the level of threat or comfort your cooperative management is feeling, it is time now to position yourself for a potential crisis in the future.

Crises come in many flavors: an ice storm causes a multiple-day outage; two employees are killed in a tragic accident; your generation plant suffers a major explosion; members threaten to sell out the cooperative. Any electric utility could be faced with a crisis in some form at any time. And when the crisis hits, it is too late to do the valuable work that should be ongoing. I am referring to making your service organization truly a service organization by recognizing our employees as "customers" who should be "served."

One of the things we know about cooperatives is that we know a lot about the service business. We have traditionally surpassed our investor-owned competitors in that realm. However, power companies, in their obsession to acquire and grow, are becoming more knowledgeable in the service arena. Some of them have begun to realize that service and a sensitivity to customer needs will fare equally with that of rates when the battle ensues.

Some power companies are also realizing that one important route to improved service comes from providing better service within the organization. Obviously our rates are an issue. But a takeover attempt could be successful even with rate parity, if consumers were dissatisfied with quality of service or felt the cooperative failed to meet their needs.

There are many aspects of the service issue to which management must attend. But one of the easiest and most critical of these is often overlooked. Management itself is a service. Ron Zemke, author of Service Wisdom and many other service-related books, has said, "Managers need to see their roles as helping service people do their jobs better."

The most effective managers are those who can walk in the door each day and ask, "What can I do to make it easier for my employees to provide excellent service to our members?" This is called serving our internal...